The worst parts of men's advocacy.

SuspicousEggSmell · 2021-11-25T19:11:57+00:00

Right now, while there is some action and organization, it does often feel like most just sit and complain (including me). Partially I think it’s fear of being ostracized, but we could be probably do more to create resources and action to help men

ultraleft68 · 2021-11-25T21:14:03+00:00

It’s weird to find so many right-wingers in this movement. In one moment they say that homeless people are lazy, that the mentally ill need to get their shit together and that prisoners and criminals are the scum of society. Then they come here and say that men need help because they suffer more from homelessness, mental illness and addiction than women do. They’re living contradictions tbh

boommicfucker · 2021-11-25T21:57:07+00:00

I don't like the absolutist red pill/bio-fatalism mindset some push, especially if it's selective. Either all men are violent and all women are hypergamous or both have certain tendencies as a group but individuals still vary greatly, chose one and stick to it.

Related: Hypocrisy in general. It undermines the power of our arguments to those who aren't on our side yet. And yes, it isn't particularly bad here and yes, everybody does it (including me), but I think everybody could be more vigilant when it comes to interrogating their own statements.

And don't let bitterness, sadness and other negative (or positive, really) emotions cloud your judgement. Yeah, sometimes shit sucks and you have to vent, that's fine. But don't try to also make a coherent point at the same time.

TheLWMA · 2021-11-25T18:57:43+00:00

I dislike how a lot of TradCons have joined the movement or at least consider themselves MRAs. They often prove feminists feelings of Men's Rights when they say things that are completely off the chain.

oggyb · 2021-11-25T20:14:28+00:00

I hate that much of the in-public discourse in favour of men's rights in the UK is pushed by male Tory MPs with a history of shitbaggery. And their points are made so badly and with such bad faith that no sensible person could stand in their defense.

azazelcrowley · 2021-11-25T23:08:06+00:00

We did ourselves a favor by demarkating our movement between MRAs, Red Pillers, and MGTOW types. It has significantly reduced the amount of bullshit in the movement.

It has however meant we can't use the energy and activism in a roughly coordinated fashion.

The question is whether that's worth the cost. And given that a lot of us take a dim view of feminism and want to fix its mistakes, i'd say the answer is probably no.

So i suppose it depends what you mean by mens movement. The worst parts are the non-MRA parts.

If you mean the worst MRA parts, i dunno man. Paul Elam is a bit of a fucknut.

Tiggywiggler · 2021-11-25T21:00:37+00:00

I have really struggled to find a male advocacy group that is not an anti-woman or anti-feminism hate group. r/MensRights has its moments of being good, but has attracted its fair share of MRAs that give a bad name to the group. r/MensLib is not a male advocacy group (MAG) and is more a feminist subreddit pretending to be an MAG. Outside of Reddit it is a cesspit in most places and so I think that this is a real problem for mens advocacy. I see exactly the same in the feminist groups and my partner says that internet feminist groups just don't represent 99% of women so maybe internet male advocacy groups don't represent men too, but r/LeftWingMaleAdvocates is the best one I have found so far and even here there are some people that make me wince when I see their comments.

BloomingBrains · 2021-11-26T08:52:33+00:00

The problem with feminism isn't that they don't own up to all the problematic aspects of their movement. No group wants to do that, and its a problem every group has. To some extent I feel like each group shouldn't have to own up to every idiot, and that the bottom of the barrel doesn't always reflect on the group as a whole. Still, it's walking a fine line because you don't want to engage in the No True Scotsman Fallacy either.

Feminism is in the position though of being such a vague and all-encompassing term that it makes itself super vulnerable to this. You have the spectrum of TERFs all the way to people that reluctantly call themselves feminists when really they just mean egalitarian but don't want to be bullied for it.

So what would we own up to exactly? We're a much narrower spectrum. I mean, we could talk about Red Pillers, MGTOWs, etc. But they are not really part of our group. That's when the feminist just says "Yeah, well then the TERFs are to us what the MGTOWs are to you". From their perspective, that would be right, even though from ours, its a world of difference.

That's why I hate calling things a "movement" and whatnot. I don't really consider myself a part of any group, just a guy that wants to speak his mind on the internet. If everyone did that, it would be about ideas--not groups, slogans, smeared public images, identity wars, etc.

IpsenSpiegel · 2021-11-25T20:37:01+00:00

There are a lot of people who use good points that men's advocacy have just to undermine mainstream feminism wanting to shut down funding of good projects.

I know that a lot of times it is a zero sum game but the stance should be "we need funding here" not "stop funding money in female shelters or breast cancer research".

peanutbutterjams · 2021-11-27T01:11:13+00:00

Probably the same as with any other place: negative generalizations, unsourced claims and bad arguments.

The sub rules take care of the first.

We can all help each other out with the second by asking for or providing sources.

Here are some. Bookmarking and tagging works well.

Women tend to have an in-group bias.

The same link also shows that men don't have an in-group bias, and actually have a bias towards women, which is important when dismantling the concept of patriarchy.

An OECD report found teachers give higher marks to girls. What's worse, boys tend to know that teachers look less favourably on them.

Many of the suffragettes were terrorists. The suffragists, on the other hand, peacefully made the case for women to have the vote.

Up to 75% of abused women are also aggressors. Most domestic violence is mutual.

Mothers tend to push gender stereotypes more than fathers.

Women have a tendency to find richer men more attractive (hypergamy).

Women have the majority of college graduates since 1980.

(And also men and women attending college were at parity between 1900 and 1930, which dispels another feminist myth of women being oppressed at every opportunity.

Rich men and rich women were able to attend college. Wealth has always been the relevant factor yet "somehow" society is convinced that we function on the axis of gender, not wealth.)

We could also help each other form a good argument for their own position. There are reasons why we say patriarchy is a myth, why we say men are disposable in our society and why we say feminism hurts men.

If anyone feels that's true but doesn't have the words to explain it, ask. We'll all give you our own separate views so you can synthesize your own instead of insisting you conform to a pre-set narrative.

JackieNaper1907 · 2021-11-25T19:09:55+00:00

Paul Elam. Some of the stuff he writes is ludicrous, but we have mutual friends, and they tell me he doesn't mean any of it, he just says it to get the media riled up, unfortunately it gives us a bad name

RockmanXX · 2021-11-26T05:22:39+00:00

MRAs are always walking on Eggshells and deathly afraid of being called a "Far Right Nazi Incel". MRAs are constantly self-censoring and have developed this obsessive need to make themselves good in front of the public. We're not going to change Gender Norms by cowing down to the public's sensibilities. We have to make people uncomfortable and force them out of their comfort zone. Going against the status quo will make you the enemy in the eyes of many. What makes us look "bad" in the eyes of everyone is the fact that we do not accept the axiom that Women are the only victims of gender discrimination and that Men are Privileged.

MRAs avoid confrontation and put all their hopes in raising awareness, but the thing is that.... people ARE aware of the issues Men face, they just choose to believe in contradictory things and i don't believe any amount of "Raising Awareness" about Men's issues is going to fix that. We HAVE to confront them on their irrational beliefs about Men being a Privileged Class.

DouglasWallace · 2021-11-26T00:04:31+00:00

a conversation about the worst parts of men's advocacy…People with political sway or media notoriety.

You are having a laugh, aren't you?

There are – maybe – three people in the world who are – maybe – a part of the men's rights movement and who have anything like political sway.

The media? You mean where feminists hang out, or the legacy media? The legacy media in most of the world don't report men's advocates or men's issues. India is the only slight variation from that (at least partly because the men's movement there forty years ago funded men to go through journalistic courses at university).

blueyb · 2021-11-26T04:50:19+00:00

Rage-masturbation needs to go if we want to be taken seriously. Posting information about laws, discussions about society and masculinity, discussing the harms of the ways society does hurt men - all great. Posting that shitty facebook post about the woman who wonders if she can force her child's babysitter to pay child support, or posting the god-forsaken Sharon Osborne laughing clip for the millionth time so we can all take out our dicks and stroke yelling WOMEN BAD WOMEN BAD WOMEN BAD - makes us look like idiots.

That's one of the things we need to get better about. And it drives me crazy, because when the low-hanging fruit of rage-bait gets posted, it gets instantly upvoted by a fucking crowd of mouth breathers who just want an excuse to yell WOMEN BAD WOMEN BAD. keep to the issues, keep the tabloid videos of individually bad women out of here.

Sydnaktik · 2021-11-25T21:49:08+00:00

There is one thing that I believe that we have to be really careful of and it is othering and demonization of women, similarly to how feminists nearly universally do to men.

It's a complex topic and there are seemingly legitimate explanations to permit MRAs to do this "demonization of women". And while in practice these rationalizations have never near risen to the level of "KAM". It is on the same slippery slope.

To see examples of MRAs doing this in /r/mensrights you can search for the term "modern women"

The rationalization (or legitimate reason) for tolerating and even promoting these negative generalizations of women is as follows:

They are true, or true enough to warrant discussion
They help cure people of the "Women are wonderful". Ages ago I used to firmly believe in the idea of men as often vile and women as universally kinder, gentler and morally superior. These anecdotes helped me understand that women aren't special, they are just shitty humans just like all the other shitty humans. But now they just feel like beating a dead horse and trying to paint all women as vile.
They help to gain an honest understanding of women and their influence on society.

I don't envy /r/mensrights mods in terms of dealing with this kind of content. I think that it's important that some amount of it actually exists somewhere.

At /r/LeftWingMaleAdvocates I've only seen something that kinda looks like this once. It was a post complaining about how young girls were so much more attention seeking than young boys. Implying that this was a consequence of entitlement caused by a gynocentric society (they didn't use those exact words, that just my poor memory of what it was about). A lot of the comments in that thread was just more anecdotes to support further negative generalizations of women.

I did report the thread, but I was told that it was reasonable. Which I'm ok with, so long as this kind of content doesn't become a regular occurrence.

Russelsteapot42 · 2021-11-25T23:52:00+00:00

While false rape and domestic violence accusations are real and should be taken seriously, I look suspiciously on anyone who seems to put a higher priority on it than on male victims of rape and domestic violence.

Some people have themselves been a victim of false accusations, and I can understand them having a particular focus, but most of the sort of people I'm talking about don't seem to have that story.

Sydnaktik · 2021-11-25T22:41:57+00:00

Here's what I think is our biggest problem right now and what we need to do next. Although this subreddit may not be the forum to do it in.

Have a proper foundation for understanding and promoting women's issues.

Having spent a bunch of time on feminism uncensored, it has become painfully clear to me that feminists are entirely incapable of properly advocating for women's rights. Which means that there is no where and no one that you can easily find that is properly advocating for women's rights.

And we can't go around pretending that women don't have any problems that are unique to them or exacerbated by the way society treats them due to their gender or exacerbated by their biology.

As a man, if I go around talking about men's issues without understanding anything about women's issues, I expect it will quickly come off as self-serving and tone deaf.

But trying to fuse men's rights issues with feminist ideology is impossible due to how toxic feminist ideology is.

I'd like to be able to develop an understanding of women's issues that has the same "vibe" as LWMA.

And I feel like without it and I can't properly consider myself progressive because just the same as how feminism tramples (and even oppresses) men because it refuses to understand their perspective. I will necessarily eventually adopt an ideology that does the same to women if I fail to understand their perspective.

goldenjuniper · 2021-11-26T17:30:18+00:00

Bringing up a fire alarm that was pulled 15 years ago as an excuse why we can't protest or discuss men's issues.

Like, is that the mettle we're made of?? A handful of misandrist can completely shut down any advocacy?

ripyourlungsdave · 2021-11-26T00:43:07+00:00

I had to leave r/MensRights because the hill the decided to die on was the “women can’t be 007” bullshit. Despite there being absolutely nothing in the canon or production that would make this some series-ruining bullshit.

It’s literally been referenced in self referential dialogue in the movies that the 007 moniker changes people every time a 007 agent dies. Why wouldn’t they happen to give it to a woman every once in a while? It was just blatant, gross misogyny and it’s so hard to find a balance between people standing up for men and hating women.

superzepto · 2021-11-26T05:14:59+00:00

I hate that a lot of male advocates will lend their support to right wing politicians purely because said politician brought up the topic of men's rights in a way that they agreed with. I do understand that it's rare to find any politician supporting men's rights, but rallying around some of the most garbage human beings because they support your cause isn't doing the cause any favours.

Honestly, /r/MensRights supports incels and MGTOWs way too fervently for my liking. Outright misogynists seem to be in the minority, but they're as disgusting as they are vocal. Again, not doing our cause any favours.

Sudden_Example_2177 · 2021-11-25T19:43:42+00:00

We're too soft. There's not enough belligerency within this movement. I despise feminism but I also recognize that the reason it succeeded in taking over the world is because of the harshness and conviction with which feminists speak.

Granted, a lot of this has to do with the punishment and the fear of ostracisation that men face but it's still a notable part of this movement.

A feminist has no problem posting #KillAllMen but if a male advocate posted #KillAllWomen on Twitter all of the other male advocates would disown him and act like he's human scum. Why?

Why hold ourselves to a moral standard that our rivals do not hold themselves to? Being moral? Being moral doesn't matter in a world where you're having your rights taken away from you.

There's too much gatekeeping and tone policing in this movement.

DanteLivra · 2021-11-25T20:05:34+00:00

There is no accountability, every bad things that happens to the movement is because of men.

There's also no agency, every bad things they do is because of men.

VincentPhil · 2021-11-26T11:13:26+00:00

There is no men's right advocacy where I live, and whatever influential figures there may be in the US are unknown and unaknowledged. Of course feminists cry wolf for this invisible danger because all they can do is parrot American feminists, and hate groups need enemies.

Honestly I wish there was a problematic side to the movement, it would mean there's a movement.

firstworldproblems

LucasAngel_ · 2021-11-29T01:43:19+00:00

Many folks have an aversion to talking Men's issues from an intersectional perspective and therefore the conversation is very limited and for me and men like me the conversation is a bit foreign to us.

Blauwpetje · 2021-11-27T11:31:23+00:00

Many MRA's hope to get their favorite point accepted in society, like circumcision or DV against men. As such, that is legitimate. But they try doing that by ignoring other men's issues or even throwing them under the bus instead of being solidary. Unfair affirmative action or the imbalanced dating scene and #MeToo then don't count for them, they even get angry when those issues come up.

Also some MRAs don't want biological differences to be talked about. Just like feminists, they're afraid you can't talk about disadvantages for men anymore when they may have an evolutionary cause. That is a very unscientific attitude.

Title	The worst parts of men's advocacy.
Author	Forgetaboutthelonely
Upvotes	184
Comments	163
Date	November 25, 2021 6:52 PM UTC (4 years ago)
Subreddit	Posted in /r/LeftWingMaleAdvocates
Original Link	https://old.reddit.com/r/LeftWingMaleAdvocates/comments/r23jmy/the_worst_parts_of_mens_advocacy/
Archive Link	https://theredarchive.com/r/LeftWingMaleAdvocates/the-worst-parts-of-mens-advocacy.1086573 https://theredarchive.com/post/1086573

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firstworldproblems